Are You Tasting the Pith?: Fuller's IPA and Bengal Lancer: The Facts Opinion. Comment. Beer. Opinionated Comment About Beer. Friday, 19 March 2010 Fuller's IPA and Bengal Lancer: The Facts This is just a follow-up to the previous post, after a quick phone conversation with John Keeling, Fuller's head brewer, where he very kindly explained the genesis of the Fuller's Bengal Lancer and how it relates to Fuller's IPA. I won't keep you in suspense any longer – they are different beers. I was going to say “totally different”, but they're not TOTALLY different – they are both IPAs brewed by Fuller's, around the same strength, with similar grain bills, so you'd expect them to share some similarities. But they are from different eras, and created by different brewers. Fuller's IPA is a beer that dates from Reg Drury's tenure as head brewer. It was a fairly traditional take on IPA*, being produced at 4.8%abv on cask, and also a version that was brewed specifically for bottling. This brew used only one hop, Goldings.

It was produced on and off for many years, as a special and for the export market. It wasn't a tremendously successful beer, but it added variety to the range. Bengal Lancer is the result of a few factors, but mainly a result of John Keeling and Derek Prentice's tendency to tinker, and brew beer that they themselves would like to drink. Bengal Lancer for cask is brewed with Goldings and Fuggles in the copper, and then dry-hopped with Goldings and Target in the fermentation vessel. An identical version is brewed for bottle, but slightly stronger, and it is chill-filtered and pasteurised before being bottle-conditioned [UPDATE 6TH APRIL 2010: John Keeling just got in touch and explained that Bengal Lancer is NOT pasteurised, but the original IPA was]. A UK supermarket wanted an own label IPA, and they were shown a prototype of Bengal Lancer. They liked it, and asked Fuller's to jump through all the hoops required to gain a British Retail Standard Certificate.

For what we shall euphemistically refer to as “various reasons”, but mainly relating to time and money, Fuller's decided that they didn't want to arse about completing this box-ticking exercise, and so the supermarket's own-label IPA didn't make it to their shelves. Around the same time, the System Bolaget held one of their regular competitions to list a new beer. Unlabelled samples are submitted to System Bolaget for evaluation, and Bengal Lancer was the beer that was chosen by them. That's quite a big contract (about 600 brewer's barrels a year, or 172,800 pints), and so Bengal Lancer went into production. If you're brewing a beer, then I guess it makes sense to try it in as many markets as possible, so Bengal Lancer was launched in the UK, to tremendous success – so far it's selling about twice as much as anyone expected it to. And that's the story, straight from the horses mouth (except for the phrase “arse about” with relation to the British Retail Standard Certificate. In a fit of writerly creativity, I inferred that from the tone of the conversation).

* if you've read Pete Brown's “Hops and Glory”, or read anything by Martin Cornell or Ron Pattinson, you'll know what a lot of nonsense this statement is. But I'm not getting into that here. I maybe should have said “a fairly conservative take on IPA”. Posted by ZakAvery at 09:44 Brewing British IPA Brewing British IPA Author: Terry Foster Issue: September 2015 We all know what we mean by “British” IPA don’t we? It was a pale, relatively low-alcohol, highly-hopped beer that the thirsty soldiers of the British Army in India relished in the hot climate of the sub-continent. It was first exported to India for the Army around 1790 by George Hodgson, a brewer from Bow in East London. Hodgson was the first to have the idea that a high hop-rate would help to preserve the beer during the several months voyage to India, and brewed such a beer especially for export to India. His idea was later taken on by the brewers of Burton on Trent, notably Bass, which became England’s largest brewer on the back of IPA.

In fact, the above is mostly untrue, starting with the fact that there was no British Army in India at that time. What troops there were in India were those of the East India Company, and were mostly Indian natives. The Company was essentially a joint stock company independent of the British Government. It began purely as a trading company but came to effectively rule India, both militarily and administratively after 1754. Consequently the Company had large numbers of civilian employees, and it was generally these administrators who drank Hodgson’s pale ale. They and any expatriate company troops also drank porter, a good deal of it from Hodgson, but it also came from other brewers. Obviously, a non-existent British army was not buying Hodgson’s beer (or anybody else’s), but neither was the East India Company. In fact, the beer was bought in London by the captains of the Company’s ships who re-sold it to the Indian civilian market. It was in fact a private business run “on the side” by the captains for their own (and not the Company’s) profit. An important reason for them taking Hodgson’s beer was that his brewery lay within a mile or two of the moorings for the Company’s ships.

A second important reason was that Hodgson gave the captains long lines of credit, as much as a year or more. There is evidence that Hodgson was not the first to ship pale ale to India and that another unknown brewer sent such beer there a few years before Hodgson got in on the act. And none of this pale ale was “relatively low in alcohol,” for it was actually October ale, a strong brew perhaps as high as 10-12% ABV. As such it may not have been as highly-hopped as IPA came to be in the 19th century. In any case Hodgson was not the first brewer to realize that high hop rates would help to preserve the beer on long sea voyages. In fact that idea goes right back to the days when hops were first introduced to England and brewers found that hopped beer kept better than unhopped ale. Even as late as the 20th century hops were rated with a “preservative value” determined by a formula involving both alpha- and beta-acids.

Eventually Hodgson’s son Frederick and a partner were running the brewery and they decided to end the long-standing credit arrangements with the East India Company captains, selling to them only for cash, and began shipping beer directly to India themselves. They also tried to prevent merchants in India from importing beer from other brewers by simply dropping their prices whenever they were threatened. Needless to say this upset quite a few people, and in 1822 Campbell Marjoribanks (pronounced “Marchbanks” as only the English would) approached the Burton brewer Samuel Allsopp and gave him a sample of Hodgson’s pale ale. Marjoribanks told him they wanted to be free of Hodgson and persuaded Allsopp that there was a good export trade to India if he was interested in brewing something similar. The Burton brewers’ main market had been to Russia but that country had recently imposed severe tariffs on such imports, removing that source of income from the brewers. So Allsopp was very interested in what Marjoribanks had told him, and set about matching Hodgson’s brew on his return to Burton.

It has been reported that the first successful brew made by Allsopp’s brewer, Job Goodhead, was made in a teapot; however, that report came out long after the event and may well be apocryphal. It amazes me how many myths have grown up around beer — a tour guide at one of our larger craft breweries in the Northeast once told me that porter was named after the railway porters who delivered it. What’s more he was reluctant to listen to me when I pointed out that porter became popular about a hundred years before railways began to be built in Britain! The important point about Mr. Goodhead’s work was that the Burton water contained high levels of calcium and sulfate ions and was much more suited to the brewing of pale ales than was London water which was high in bicarbonate ions. In the next year after Marjoribanks’ approach to Allsopp the latter sent a shipment of his new pale ale to India. It was apparently received with acclaim, so much so that other Burton brewers were very quick to come up with their own pale ales, with Bass brewing its first version in 1823.

For the record, it has been reported that the Edinburgh-Leith brewery in Scotland had actually made an “IPA” rather earlier in 1820. One type of Edinburgh water bore some similarities to that of Burton so it is not surprising that Scottish pale ales were of similar quality to those from Burton, and that Edinburgh brewers produced such ales in some volume as the 19th century wore on. Nevertheless, it was the Burton brewers, particularly Bass, who came to dominate the trade to India. They also achieved success in selling their pale ales and, later, IPAs in England itself. They were helped by external factors, notably that from the 1830s onwards a network of railways was built in England, so that beer could readily be exported from Burton all over the country. But the public’s taste was also changing, drifting away from dark porters and stouts and towards paler beers. Dark beers were in a terminal decline, although the decline was very gradual for in 1839 Bass was still producing porter as well as pale ale. Another factor was the growth of a middle class with disposable income who could afford the more expensive imported Burton pale ales over those produced locally and therefore more cheaply.

Also drinking glasses, which showed pale ales to good effect, were becoming popular thanks to a removal of a tax on glasses in 1840. An internal factor which helped the Burton brewers was the development of the Burton Union system. This consisted of very large wooden casks, fitted with attemperators, or cooling coils, and swan neck tubes in the bung holes of the casks. This allowed the fermenting beer to froth out into a collecting trough where the yeast would separate from the beer and the latter could be returned to the casks. The importance of this was that the brewers could use powdery, non-flocculent yeast and achieve high attenuation of the beer, thus making it more stable and unlikely to re-ferment when it had to be shipped over long distances. The outcome of all this is that Bass became the biggest brewer in England later in the century. Burton IPA became the classic IPA and was exported all over the world, including to the USA. But its very success meant that other British brewers wanted to emulate it, and we have already seen that Edinburgh brewers did exactly that.

But other brewers all over the country also made their own versions, some of which may well have been of poor quality for lack of suitable water. But as the 19th century wore on brewing chemists came to understand the importance of using the right kind of water, and how to adjust their supplies to match the quality of Burton water. So soon virtually every brewer in the land had his own pale ale. There was also a trend to making lower strength versions, such as dinner ales, leading to the emergence of bitter ales, which are now the most common form of ale in Britain. This brings us into the 20th century when beer strengths went into a steady decline. At the beginning of the century the average alcohol content was 5-6% ABV; by the end it had fallen to around 3.7–3.8%. Some of that was due to changes in drinking habits, but an important factor was that of taxation. For over a century British beer taxed after 1880 was based on the original gravity of the wort and was due when the gravity was measured and not when the beer was sold, which was almost a double tax!

Throughout the century beer tax steadily increased, with huge surges in the two World Wars. It is now based on ABV, and there is a reduction for small brewers (below 60,000 barrels), but still excise duty remains a burden on British brewers, and it was recently calculated that they pay 40% of the total beer tax in the European Union. What has that to do with IPA in Britain? Well, as I said earlier the tax pushed brewers to reduce their original gravities and ABV levels, leading most of them to produce nothing but low-alcohol session beers. Although not in many ways a bad thing, it did mean that “classical” IPAs more or less disappeared in Britain. But the IPA name did not, and some brewers kept it for beers at half the strength of 19th century IPAs. The best-selling cask-conditioned beer in Britain is Greene King’s IPA, weighing in at just 3.7% ABV, and not the strongest pale beer on their list. Some would argue that these beers are not IPAs in any sense, but rather just regular bitter ales. Others might say that whatever a brewer calls his beer that is what it is.

I used to think that such beers should not be called IPA, but have come round to the idea that we cannot ignore them if they are popular with drinkers, so perhaps it is best to look on them as another class of IPA, separate from the original forms. And remember that the “classical” IPAs were never a defined style, and were by no means always brewed from traditional English malt and hops, such as Goldings. Bass, in the 19th century, often used imported malt and hops, including American hops, so their IPA offering could hardly be termed “traditional.” There have been other changes in British IPAs, notably the use of caramel malts, which were first produced only in the late 19th century. Their value in IPAs is to add some body and slight sweetness, so that it is possible to still use a relatively high hopping rate without making the beer thin and unbalanced. Other changes came with the craft brewing revolutions in Britain and the USA. Perhaps inspired by the American craft brewers wholesale love affair with IPA, some British brewers moved to create or revive their own versions. Some indeed have done so using American citrus-type hops, while others have been more traditional.

But the interesting thing is that few have brewed their new IPAs to anything like the alcohol level of their 19th century predecessors. In fact, they have mostly brewed these new beers at around 5-5.5% ABV, such as Fuller’s Bengal Lancer at 5.0% ABV. And that to me gives us yet another class of British IPA, so that there are now three in all. There were other changes on the British brewing scene through the 20th and into the 21st century. Mostly these had to do with brewery amalgamations as the larger companies grew by buying up the smaller ones, mainly to get their hands on their “tied houses” (pubs owned by the brewer and in which only that brewer’s beer was sold). The result of this is that there is now only one British brewer in Burton, Marston’s. Apart from a few small craft brewers the others in the town are now owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev (Belgium/USA) and Miller Coors (South Africa/USA). Bass as a company has disappeared, and I am presently drinking a Bass Pale Ale brewed by AB InBev in the USA.

Defining and Brewing British IPAs The Brits have no body or institution which defines beer styles, and as discussed earlier it is clear that they have very loose ideas as to what constitutes a British IPA and that the IPA style has been something of a moving target. Therefore, I am not going to give precise definitions in the style of the Beer Judge Certification Program, but rather just some loose guidelines along with the example recipes on pages 90–92. Traditional or classic IPA, by which I mean IPA, roughly according to the Burton IPAs of the 19th century, were actually quite simple beers, based only on pale malt. Actual analyses of beers of that time indicate OG of 1.065–1.070 (15.9–17.1 °P), with finishing gravities around 1.008-1.012 (2-3 °P), giving 7-7.5% ABV. As to hop rates we do know that these were high at 3–5 lbs./barrel or 6-9 oz./5 US gallons.

What we do not know is what varieties of hops were used — Goldings were probably a favorite, but Bass for one is known to have used some American hops. We do not know the condition of the hops, as they were stored without refrigeration, and might well have been very low in alpha-acid when used. However, educated guesses suggest that these beers had IBU levels of 70 to as much as 100+. They were generally dry-hopped in the cask for both aroma and preservative purposes, but again we do not know just how effective this procedure was for producing aromatic character, as much of the hop oils could have been lost in storage. I have given a recipe for IPA in this article (starting on page 90) taken from an 1868 publication, which is simply a collection of recipes that gives a beer fitting the above description. The brewer, George Amsinck, was apparently working in London, not Burton, but his recipes are very detailed (a rarity at that time!) and easily capable of conversion to homebrewing.

But the beers described above are very highly attenuated (over 80%) and therefore very dry which would accentuate the already high hop bitterness, and in my view would taste somewhat thin. I have therefore given recipes for my classic IPA in which I have gone for “only” 70 IBU and have added some crystal and amber malt just to beef up the body. For the Amsinck recipe I have stuck to East Kent Goldings as he did, but my “classic” uses a mixture of Goldings, Fuggles, and Styrian Goldings which is a more modern interpretation of the style. In each case dry-hopping in the secondary with one or more of the latter three varieties is a must. I have opted for Whitbread yeasts rather than a Burton strain, since the latter is less easy to find and in my experience it is difficult to handle in a normal homebrew setup. Modern British IPA (recipe starting on page 90) is my obvious term for the “revival” products offered by several British commercial brewers.

We would call these pale ales, but I’m sticking to the attitude of “it is what the brewer says it is.” These come in at around 1.050–1.055 (12.4–13.6 °P), finishing at around 1.010-1.012 (2.6-3.1 °P), and about 5-5.7% ABV. Hop levels are lower than for classic IPAs at 40-50 IBU, using English Goldings and Fuggles for aroma, and higher alpha-acid varieties such as Target or First Gold for bittering. Again dry-hopping is important, and preferably done with Goldings or Fuggles. One or two British brewers do use citrus character US hops, so that gives you some room to work in if you want to use Cascade, Centennial, Citra®, and so on. Ideally these should be brewed from English 2-row pale malts, such as Maris Otter or Golden Promise, although US 2-row pale malts still work well, and you could even use a Pilsner malt if you wanted a very pale version of this beer.

British brewers are fond of crystal malts, and a small amount (about 5% on total malt) of a low-color crystal (20-40 °L) does add a little palate fullness to this type of beer. The choice of yeast is wide and almost any English strain will give good results, so long as it gives good attenuation (70% or better). Keep the fermentation below 70 °F (21 °C) as esters are not wanted in this beer which should have a “clean palate.” Very Small Modern IPA (recipe starting on page 92) is the unglamorous title I have picked for the third British IPA category. For me the OG for this type of beer should be around 1.036–1.038 (9-9.5 °P), although this is not written in stone. The finishing gravity should be no lower than 1.009 (2.3 °P) so the beer will be around 3.5–3.7% ABV.

Bitterness levels should be around 25–30 IBU, and I have opted in the recipes for bittering with Fuggles and Target and First Gold for late- and dry-hopping respectively. But you can use any English hop you want for any of these purposes, including Progress and even the high alpha-acid Admiral varieties. I do not see this as a beer where you would want to use a US citrus hop. Base malt choices are much the same as for Modern British IPA, although again Maris Otter would be my first choice. You also need a slightly higher level of light crystal malt at about 8–10% of the grist just to give that little extra bit of body to what is quite a light beer. Almost any yeast strain labelled “London” or “English Ale” will do, so long as they are not highly attenuating. Keeping fermentation temperature near to 65 °F (18 °C) will help avoid over-attenuation and keep the beer’s palate clean. Lastly, don’t expect too much from this beer, it’s a session ale meant for no more than pleasant drinking.

Recipes Browse over 50 Quality Beers and Ales from Fuller's Brewery - Fuller's Fuller's © Fuller Smith & Turner 2017 Privacy & Cookies Search Cookies help make our website better for you. If you're ok with this, carry on. If you'd like more info, please read our cookie policy . Beer Justice: February 2010 National Trust IPA Staying on an IPA theme it is about time that I gave a shout out to the new National Trust beer that Robert Wicks from Westerham Brewery sent me long before Christmas. The beer is a traditional IPA style beer called National Trust - Viceroy India Pale Ale. It is named with a nod to Lord Curzon who was Viceroy of India and responsible for the restoration of historic buildings, notably the Taj Mahal. At the end of his tour of duty, he returned to England and set his mind to our own historic buildings hence the connection with the National Trust. He was also a great beer drinker. The beer itself is a 5% bottle conditioned, India Pale Ale, brewed at Westerham Brewery in Kent using organic malt and hops from the local Little Scotney estate, another connection with the National Trust.

The beer is amber coloured and pours with a fluffy white head. The hop aroma hits you first with appetising floral and grassy notes enticing the first slug. The flavour is big, with a spicy hop bitterness that envelopes the tasty honey and apricot sweetness. The finish is long, dry and bitter to the end. This beer is delicious, the bottle carbonation giving enough tartness to cut through the resinous, peppery hop character. It is a very distinct and complex beer. It is brave of Westerham Brewery and National Trust to agree that their beer should have such character. It would have been very easy to bring a drinkable but dumbed down IPA style beer for the visitors to National Trust properties. This will usually be a one-off discretionary purchase by visitors wanting to put a bit more into the Trust funds. They are going to get a pleasant surprise when they taste it. Posted by Adnams or Fullers IPA ? Dropped into the Sun Inn in Barnes village last night. Was attracted by the Adnams American Style IPA - part of the Adnams seasonal beer program.

This has the potential to be an excellent beer but on this occasion failed due to flavours of clove and butterscotch that spoiled the taste and aromas of sweet biscuity malt backed up by a strong American hop character. Look out for it - on a good day this beer will blow Fuller's Bengal Lancer away. I like the new Bengal Lancer from Fuller's but I think it is overcome by the sweet orange character that comes from the Fuller's yeast in their stronger beers. I think a more liberal use of hops might have given the beer a more distinct IPA style. Both beers of course are aiming at balance to provide the regular beer drinker with variety and choice rather than amusing the rather boring, style obsessed, beer geek. In my experience the Fuller's beer is always of good quality. I look forward to finding the Adnams in good form but in the meantime Bengal Lancer will be my first choice out of these two. One nice observation of the English attitude to service was observed last night. An old man with a stick, settled in the corner with his dimpled glass almost empty of Doom Bar, stopped a passing barman, thrust a fiver at him and asked if he could get him another pint.

"Sorry" replied the barman, "We don't do table service". Table service ? He wasn't asking for table service, he was asking for kindness. Another customer stood up and went to the bar for him. You could not make it up. Posted by Glasshouse, Kew Now I am a simple sort of a bloke. That came out wrong but hopefully you get my drift. I prefer the simple pleasures in life; happy with a good pint in a well run pub sustained by a steak pie or a cod and chips. Recently Mrs W and I have agreed that we should be upping the ante and visiting some smarter places than the Roebuck and Red Lion. It helps not that when I attend court the conversation in the retiring room is often about high end restaurants and holidays and I keep dragging everyone back to pubs and beer. Last week we coupled a visit to Kew Gardens with lunch at The Glasshouse - a well respected local restaurant by KG station that has merited Michelin star status for a number of recent years. On arrival I scanned the wine list per chance for an interesting beer list and was unsurprised to find no beers among the comprehensive collection. I selected a New Zealand, Sauvignon Blanc from the Marlborough region.

I don't drink much wine these days but I do have an advanced WSET certificate and I know what I like. The wine was excellent; dry, crisp and refreshing as expected. The food was fabulous which is unsurprising given the place's starred status but from my beer-geek perspective my meal was begging for a beer match. The starter of scotch egg was cooked to perfection. The crisp outside matched with the smoothness of the meat and rounded off with a soft yolk of the egg inside. Lovely comfort food. However it was calling out for a spritzy golden beer such as Meantime London Pale Ale where the carbonation would cut through the fattiness of the scotch egg and a delicate hop bitterness might compliment the runny yolk. My main of braised rabbit leg was falling from the bone, the gamey flavours from the rabbit combining beautifully with the onion and potato that accompanied. I was by this time enjoying the sauvignon blanc but what I really wanted was a more malty number. A small glass of Adnams Broadside or a Belgian dubbel would be a perfect match with the sweet maltiness bringing out the gamey meat character and finishing with a warming, spicy aftertaste.

By the time I was ready for dessert I was certain my wine would not go perfectly with a chocolate terrine so I slugged back the last glass. As my wife was driving I had to drink three quarters of the bottle (hardship, I know) so had no capacity for glass of sticky from the strong list of dessert wine. The rich taste of the chocolate torte was set off by a refreshing raspberry sorbet and by then I was drfiting away dreaming of a strong stout or even a tart geueze to heighten the sensational flavours of the chocolate and raspberry. All in all, it was a fantastic afternoon and I will definitely return on the strength of this one visit. Food, service and ambiance of this place are all first class. [Luch for two with wine and service was £90]. I didn't expect a beer offering so was not disappointed. I just feel that with food of this quality they are missing a trick by not offering at least a short beer list. But then again, you could say I am a little biased. Next in the pursuit of beer in good restaurants is the River Cafe, Hammersmith.

Then I am going to try the Harwood Arms in Fulham, London's first pub to be awarded a Michelin star and somewhere I can be guaranteed a choice of beer. Posted by CAMRA National Chairman Today, I am going to post a few pieces of news that may have passed you by. Firstly, last Saturday, Paula Waters stood down as CAMRA National Chairman. Colin Valentine was elected by the National Executive as the new Chairman with immediate effect. Although many of the "figurehead" duties of the CAMRA Chair are now delegated to the head office team led by Chief Executive, Mike Benner; it is vital that the National Chairman is able to demonstrate leadership. Leadership to the 110,000+ members, the 200+ branches, the 10,000+ active members, 1,000+ members at conference, 250+ beer festivals, 30+ HQ staff members - and that is just internal affairs. It is a thankless task and very difficult to be all things to all people. Colin Valentine is a strong leader and I, for one, wish him the best of luck in his new role for the Campaign.

Posted by Castle Rock Harvest Pale I have always enjoyed finding a pint of Castle Rock, Harvest Pale. It is a quaffable pale ale, 3.8%, crisp and bitter with liberal use of American hops. It has won numerous CAMRA and SIBA awards and it is rare to find it in less than tip-top form. At £2.10 in the Vat & Fiddle, the brewery tap, it is an absolute winner. At the weekend, I learned that it is now available in a bottle. Brewed out to 4.3% to give a bit of extra oomph to counteract the carbonation necessary for a bottled beer, I found it to be yet another winner. The increased strength balancing the biscuit sweetness of the malt and a distinct dry bitterness - again from liberal use of American hops. From the clean, fresh taste it is clear that top quality ingredients are used and the flavour is consistent with the cask version. I believe it now has a national listing in both Morrisons and Tescos so should be available on a supermarket shelf near you. As a slight aside, the bottled beer is brewed and bottled under license by Marston's in Wolverhampton.

Its provenance is clearly stated on the bottle. I am more interested in what a beer tastes like but should I care more that such a great beer is getting a wider distribution supported by a giant like Marston's as there is insufficient capacity at Castle Rock to bottle the beer ? Posted by Battersea Beer Festival If you do nothing else this week, get yourself down to the twentieth Battersea Beer Festival being held at the Battersea Arts Centre on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Among the 150 or so cask ales you will also find a well stocked foreign bar, plenty of cider and perry and the legendary Polish food from Kam's Deli. This is likely you be a very popular event so I recommend you get there as early as possible each evening. For any who don't know where it is, it is about a 10 minute walk up Lavender Hill from Clapham Junction railway station. Posted by Citizen Smith Most people of a certain generation will equate Citizen Smith with Tooting harking back to the 1970's TV series of the same name so it seems strange to see him crop up recently on Putney High Street.

Citizen Smith is a new cocktail style bar that is most notable (for me anyway) for its beer range. There are one or two pumps of cask ale - a Sharp's beer (usually the seasonal or Cornish Coaster rather than the ubiquitous Doom Bar), and Meantime London Pale Ale. The tap (or keg) options range from Meantime, (Stout, Kolsch and the delicious, Smoked Bock) to Budvar to US offerings such as Anchor and Sierra Nevada. The bottled list runs to about a thirty beers from around the world - some of the highlights being Sierra Nevada Porter, Goose Island IPA, Brewdog Punk IPA, Dark Star Espresso, Little Creatures and Coopers. The beer list is well researched and thorough with detailed tasting notes that make the mouth water. This is not your normal pub, it is part of a growing trend in London to offer good quality beer at the most trendy and modern bars - and something to be celebrated. I suggest you give it a try as you move down the High Street from the Wetherspoon's towards the Young's and Fuller's pubs as you make your way to the Bricklayer's Arms - still Putney's highlight for beer lovers.

The vibe in Citizen Smith is buoyant and lively whenever I have visited and the mood is good. I have often been the oldest person in there but it is full of Putney's beautiful people sampling beautiful beer among their cocktails. Food is pizzas and salads with the back of the bar being the dining area. Open late on weekends when the music turns up a notch but the beer still flows. This is a rarity - a beer led cocktail/wine bar and I hope it does really well on the beer front and becomes an essential visit for South West London's beer lovers.

Posted by The following is a list of beer festivals that are advertised in the latest issue of London Drinker magazine together with other future confirmed local CAMRA events : Feb 10th-12th Battersea BAC, Lavender Hill 11th-15th Land of Liberty, Peace & Plenty (Winter) Heronsgate 11th-14th White Hart (winter) Grays 25th-26th Leyton Orient Supporters Club Leyton 25th-28th Bricklayer's Arms Putney 26th-29th Red Lion (Scottish and Welsh) Isleworth 28th-6th Mar Rake (Welsh beers) Borough Market March 10th-12th London Drinker Camden Centre 10th-14th Pembury Tavern Hackney 25th-28th Le Gothique Wandsworth Common 27th-28th King William IV (Brodies) Leyton April 1st-5th Land of Liberty, Peace & Plenty Heronsgate 2nd-5th Five Bells Chelsfield 8th-10th Bexley Sidcup Sports Club 9th

-10th Hook Verona Drive, Surbiton June 8th-12th Thurrock Civic Hall, Grays 25th-26th Kingston Workmen's Club and Institute Posted by February at last Right, here goes.

this is my final attempt to spark some life into this blog. The winter feasting season is over and it is now time to get back to what matters most - beer. The larder is empty, no cheese, no Christmas cake, no snacks, no crisps, no biscuits. My huge stash of Cadbury's Dairy Milk is exhausted - my wine gums are all gone, as are the licorice allsorts - yes, even the brown ones were gobbled up last night. The weather is warming. The children are back to university (well, one isn't but that is a wholly different tale). There is a new more personal blog that I'm hoping will help me shed some pounds. The cross trainer is dusted off and the running shoes dragged out from beneath the wellies and waterproofs. The new London Drinker is about to hit the pubs and it is packed with special places to find great beer in the next two months. I have plenty to share given my barren patch. There are new bars to shout out about, Cask Pub & Kitchen , Sheffield Tap , Citizen Smith . Some new beers, notably Bengal Lancer, the IPA from Fullers.

Now that I have finished reading about Swedish lesbians , I can get back to my beer books . Those kind people who have sent me stuff over recent months will at last get a shout out for their beer, website, film or book. There may even be some more videos. So, here we go, this is my best effort. Enjoy ! Posted by Gale's Prize Old Ale – Features – Protz On Beer, by Roger Protz Gale's Prize Old Ale Added: Thursday, April 1st 2010 Gale's Prize Old Ale (POA) is alive and well. The celebrated bottle-conditioned old ale, first brewed in the 1920s, seemed certain to disappear when the brewery in Horndean, Hampshire, was taken over by Fuller's in 2006. As Fuller's, based in Chiswick, west London, has two bottle-matured beers, 1845 and Vintage Ale, POA looked surplus to requirements. But the beer, often described as Britain's version of Belgian lambic, has survived. Fuller's has produced two vintages, dated 2007 and 2008.

The first was produced at Gale's prior to the closure, the second at Chiswick. An exceptionally large batch was made at Gale's and some of this is now used for blending at Fuller's to ensure the beer retains its tart and slightly sour characteristics. the Prize Old Ale story POA was the result of a brewer from Yorkshire going to work in Horndean in the 1920s and bringing with him the recipe for a strong and long-matured old ale. For decades the beer was fermented in wooden vessels then matured in hogsheads for six to 12 months. Natural bacteria in the wood gave the beer its sharp, lactic tang. Eventually the hogsheads were phased out and replaced by metal tanks but the lactic character was retained by blending new beer with a batch of old. Yeast used for primary fermentation was added in bottle, sealed with corks and cradles. The beer was declared at 9% but could reach as high as 12% with bottle conditioning. POA was brewed with Maris Otter pale malt with black malt and brewing sugar. The hops were Fuggles and East Kent Goldings (colour 90 units, bitterness units 53).

John Keeling, Fuller's head brewer, is enthralled by the manner in which POA develops. "It's not lambic - but it's similar," he says. "At Gale's, where it was fermented in wood, it acquired a unique flora and fauna character as the vessels were impossible to clean properly. It was a completely wild system and the natural micro-organisms gave the beer its unique quality. Even though it was stored in stainless steel tanks, it didn't lose the flora and fauna notes." The base beer brewed by Fuller's for blending is now made with Optic pale malt, with crystal and chocolate malts. The hops are still Fuggles and Goldings as their peppery and spicy notes are vital contributors to the beer's aroma and palate. John Keeling said each new vintage of POA is a blend of new beer and a proportion of the old Gale's stock. The beer is matured for 12 months in metal tanks and is then blended again with fresh beer. "Each vintage is vatted for 18 months," he says, "which allows the micro-organisms to do their work. We will always brew too much and hold some back and we will always have a percentage of the old Gale's beer.

The wood supplied the micro-organisms and we will keep them alive even though the beer is now aged in stainless steel tanks. It's the combination of yeast and bacteria that gives the beer its character." Nevertheless the 2008 version of POA is radically different to the 207. John Keeling is quite open about the reasons for the difference. "Our sales team didn't want to sell the 2007 vintage - they said it wasn't commercially viable, just too sour for most drinkers. But John Roberts, our managing director, was keen to continue with the beer. He said a wider audience was needed. The beer now comes with a conventional crown cork. "The driven cork was part of the problem," Keeling says, "as the beer tended to be flat. The new cork retains more natural carbonation." I tasted 2007 and 2008 together. The 2007 vintage has a ruby colour and a massive nose of glac fruit, raisins, sultanas and Dundee cake. It's mouth-puckeringly tart in the mouth, fruity and refreshing, with peppery hops and tart fruit in the finish. The 2008 is less aggressively sour.

The colour is identical and the nose has raisins, sultanas, walnuts with barley sugar, a hint of chocolate and warming alcohol in the mouth. Sourness comes through in the finish, with peppery Goldings and tart fruit. Fuller's is selling more POA than Gale's and future vintages may restore some of the more aggressive tartness of the past. I agree with Jeff Evans in the Good Bottled Beer Guide that the 2008 vintage has more in common with a sour red Rodenbach than a lambic. The beer is available only from Fuller's online shop: fullers.co.uk. The Fuller's sales team had no doubts about a new beer: an India Pale Ale called Bengal Lancer. It's been a runaway success and sold out within days of being launched. A new batch was ready for bottling at the end of March but the beer will not be available in cask again until September. The beer is 5.3% in bottle (5% in cask) and is bottle-fermented. It's brewed with pale and crystal malts, hopped with Fuggles and Goldings and dry hopped in tank with Goldings and Target.

It has between 45 and 50 units of bitterness. It has an enticing aroma of tangy citrus fruit, biscuity malt and peppery hops, with hop bitterness building in the mouth. The finish is long and quenching, beautifully balanced between spicy and resinous hops, tart fruit and juicy malt. The beer is on sale in Fuller's pubs as well as from the online shop. *A new version of Fuller's Reserve, the beer aged in wood, will be bottled in either May or June. The first version was matured in malt whisky casks but the new one will be aged in Courvoisier barriques Share this: Beer: drinking in the seasons | Life and style | The Guardian Word of Mouth blog Beer: drinking in the seasons Whether it's zingy ales or light golden thirst quenchers, Mark Dredge guides you towards the perfect springtime pint to accompany a ploughman's or some grilled asparagus. How do the seasons affect your beer drinking? A welcome summer sight.

Photograph: Peter Denton/Getty Images Wednesday 21 April 2010 07.03 EDT First published on Wednesday 21 April 2010 07.03 EDT Share on Messenger Close Beer is a wonderful, seasonal product and while some ales are produced year round, others pop up for short bursts each year, brewed especially to sate the particular thirsts of the season. Spring brings beer with more hops than the Easter bunny, floral or citrusy, zingy and easy drinking. A light, golden ale or lager for summer to quench a thirst, something you can sink a few of without falling over afterwards. Autumn brings something darker, auburn like the leaves, toffee and bonfire flavours, earthy and spicy. In winter it gets darker still, barley wines hearty with the sweet flavours of Christmas and roasty full-bodied stouts, thick and warming. The seasonal styles also suit the mood and temperament in a lovely symbiotic link. The life-is-good-again of spring, the vibrancy of colour, flavour, freshness, vitality; the let's-live-life attitude of summer - long uncomplicated days spending time with friends in the sun.

Then there's the buckling in of autumn, preparing for winter, gradually warming ourselves. The restorative search of winter, a need for a spike of boozy warmth and a deep comfort within. These yearly brews fold in and out of the seasons effortlessly, crafted to satisfy thirsts and suit the temperament of the moment in a life-beer embrace. Dark Star, the recently-upsized brewery on the south coast (who make some very good beer), do this exceptionally well with a range of monthly and seasonal brews, including: Golden Gate (4.5%) from February to April which is bursting at the sides with fruity American hops; Summer Solstice (4.2%) in June, a light, crisp thirst-quencher; a Smoked Porter (4.9%) in September, warming like a pub fire; and Critical Mass in December, a pudding-like strong ale (7.8%) that's remarkably easy to drink (even if it does leave you fighting harder with gravity after a couple).

We're in springtime now and should see good pubs replacing the brown beers of winter with fresh golden pints of ale, fragrant with the early uses of the season's dried hops - floral, fresh cut grass, blossom, lemon, citrus and tropical fruit. They are the flavours we want to be drinking because they are the sights and smells which are all around us. These beers also link in effortlessly with the change in food for spring, working a treat with salads, fresh fish and fresh vegetables. The hop character in the beer has a palate-cleansing quality which is ideal for oily fish, salad dressings or spice, poking chilli with a little extra zing, while the backbone of biscuit and caramel malt adds sweetness and balance. Paella, the food equivalent of a ray of sunshine, is great with Adnams' Regatta (4.3% abv) as the light, lemon lift at the end of the beer pairs harmoniously with the dish.

When Stuart Howe isn't brewing beers with offal for his 52-week beer project, he's concentrating on his 'normal' beers and Sharp's 6 Hop (3.8% abv) is a zippy, dry-finishing beer with hints of grapefruit from the US hop varieties of Cascade and Willamette, ideal to serve alongside grilled mackerel from the Cornish coast. Ramsgate Brewery have Common Conspiracy (4.5% abv), a San Francisco-inspired pale ale punchy with a quenching bitterness perfect to drink with Thai noodles. Look out for Fuller's Bengal Lancer (5% abv) a lip-smacking IPA, packed with spicy marmalade and juicy citrus, great with a shoulder of lamb rubbed with Morrocan or Indian spice. Oakham Ales Chaos Engine (4.1% abv) has a long, dry finish and their Asylum (4.5% abv) is loaded with citrus hop flavour, both are great on their own or even better with sea bass and a fragrant salad. Other ales are here full-time owing to their popularity but they come into their own as spring arrives.

Timothy Taylor's Landlord (4.3% abv), a favourite pint of many, sings in spring and loves a ploughman's in a pub beer garden. Marble Brewery in Manchester make some fantastic beer and their Pint (3.9% abv) is as good as it gets. If you have this with salt and pepper squid you will be a very happy person. Scotland's Cairngorm Brewery's Trade Winds (4.3% abv) is a glass of apricots and elderflower, fresher than a spring breeze and an ideal table mate for lamb or pork served with new potatoes. And of course, the spring favourite of asparagus (grilled, roasted, risottoed, covered in parmesan, whatever) served with a bottle of Worthington's White Shield (5.6% abv), is a classic British combination. Most of the seasonal brews can only be found in the pub and aren't bottled for the shops, which has the added bonus of encouraging people out of the winter hibernation to find them. Cask British ale is a fantastic product and deserves to be celebrated.

It's also something which is at its best in the pub, preferably as close to the brewery it was made in as possible, so look out for what your local breweries are doing. There is something revitalising about spring, the hope and freshness as the cloak of winter darkness is thrown aside for the shades of summer sun. What'll be in your glass?

Question: Which brewery produced an Indian Pale Ale called 'Bengal Lancer' in 2010?
Answer: FULLERS